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Saturday, October 3, 2015

Lawmaker advocates agri-business for revenue, agricultural exports

Hon.
Oladipupo Adebutu, representing Remo Federal Constituency, Ogun State, in the
House of Representatives, has advocated urgent adoption of wholesale,
agri-business as a strategy to earn revenue from processed agricultural
exports, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Adebutu said, “Nigeria must now as a matter of
urgency, adopt wholesale agri-business as a strategy to earn revenue from
processed agricultural exports. Agriculture could serve us in several
beneficial ways: Apart from becoming the ‘new oil’ and swelling the nation’s
coffers, it would generate employment. The non-oil sector of the economy has
the potential to serve as a springboard for industrialisation.”

He
added also that the Land Use Act must be amended to cater for small land owners
and farmers who because of lack of documentation are unable to access bank and
government intervention facilities to raise capital and inputs for their
farming. Many economic lands, NaijaAgroNet learnt,
are not properly utilised because of the documentary restriction imposed by the
Land Use Act. He stated that a holistic reform of the land tenure system will
unleash the great potential of the agri-business and reduce the massive
unemployment plaguing the nation with its attendant security implications.

Speaking
to the media, Hon. Adebutu stated that against the background of the recent Job
Creation Report for the second quarter of 2015 released by the National
Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which said job creation in Nigeria has slumped by 70
per cent, he called for a strategic framework to be designed for the
agriculture sector which will help transform it into a true platform for
urgently creating jobs, directly and indirectly for Nigeria's youths, NaijaAgroNet also reports.

“Nigeria
is blessed with swathes of arable land and human resources to pursue sustained
local food production as a way of engaging the youth. We should utilise our
youth demographics to boost agricultural production and reduce unemployment.